balance10: November 2015

Monday, November 30, 2015

& the tree of unity will flourish.

Black Butte in distance; Shasta sunrise (below)

304. I am summoning the wise ones; new and useful ones will gather. And the tree of unity will flourish. -Leaves of Morya's Garden 1924

Josie Grant SF Chinatown murals

-Josie Grant: 1 of 8 Immortals (Bok Sen), SF Chinatown murals, ~1979-82, renewed in 2007.

1 0f 8 Immortals--Josie Grant mural at SF

18 Masters illustrated

-Jesus Christ, Kuthumi, Saint Germain, Morya El, Gautama, Archangel Gabriel with Mohammad, Kuan Yin, Nanak, Lanello, Guru Ma, Yogananda, Afra, Archeia Mary, Confucius, Archangel Michael, PadmaSambhava, Milarepa, Amitabha in Prayer and Meditation, 1978

how corrupt can U.S. government get?

11-30-15 Once an ISDS challenge is brought, there is almost no check on the power of the unelected panel of private ISDS arbitrators. The arbitrators are not required to follow any precedents, and there are no substantive appeals from their rulings. As a result, ISDS arbitrators can ignore statutes, regulations, even IP decisions from a nation’s highest court, and make rulings based purely on their own notions of what constitutes expropriation or a required “minimum standard of treatment.”

“ISDS could become a form of supra-judicial review,” said Ramage. “If a company doesn’t like a final court or administrative agency decision in a matter, it can file an ISDS action, claiming that the state action has harmed it or expropriated its property. A country’s supreme court no longer will no longer be the ‘court of last resort’ if you’re a foreign investor … instead, it just may be an ISDS tribunal.”

Many governments are already nervous of adverse ISDS rulings. Because just one ruling can force a government to pay hundreds of millions of dollars, plus encourage similar arbitration claims from other foreign investors. It can effectively make a law or policy too expensive to maintain. This is bad news for IP law in the TPP area. Because of TPP’s ISDS provisions, nations that sign onto the agreement risk the prospect of either paying hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their IP laws in force, or amending their IP laws to satisfy disgruntled foreign businesses.

TPP’s provisions on IP and ISDS will “upset the international intellectual property legal system,” Flynn wrote. There are good reasons for his concern. The USTR was repeatedly asked to comment on the issues raised in this article. The agency provided no response. http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/11/30/tpp-strengthens-controversial-ip-arbitration/

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Tom Vilsack, USDA Secretary

As Iowa Governor, Tom Vilsack was a leading advocate for Monsanto, genetic engineering, and factory farming. President Obama proudly lauded his new Agriculture Secretary for "promoting biotech."

Vilsack has, in fact, promoted the most controversial and dangerous forms of agricultural biotechnology, including pharma crops, plants genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals. When grown outdoors on farmland, where most pharma crop trials have occurred, pharma crops can easily contaminate conventional and organic varieties.

In one chilling example from 2002, a corn crop engineered by ProdiGene to produce a vaccine for pigs contaminated 500,000 bushels of soybeans that were grown in the Nebraska field the next season. Before this incident, a similar thing had happened in Iowa where the USDA ordered ProdiGene to pay for the burning of 155 acres of conventional corn that may have been contaminated by the firm's biotech plants.

ProdiGene eventually went out of business, but not before it received a $6 million investment from the Governors Biotechnology Partnership, chaired by Iowa Governor Vilsack. Vilsack didn't want any restrictions placed on experimental pharma crops. In reaction to suggestions that pharma crops should be kept away from food crops, Vilsack argued that "we should not overreact and hamstring this industry."

Michael Taylor, Senior Adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on Food Safety

The Organic Consumers Association generated nearly 40,000 letters opposing former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor's appointment as a senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety.

Michael Taylor should not be a senior FDA food safety adviser. The Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. from 1998 until 2001, Taylor exemplifies the revolving door between the food industry and the government agencies that regulate it.

Roger Beachy, Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture

On October 5, 2009, Roger Beachy, long-time president of the Danforth Plant Science Center (Monsanto's nonprofit arm), became the chief of the USDA's newly created National Institute of Food and Agriculture (a nomination that doesn't require congressional approval).

Roger Beachy should not be steering the direction of US agricultural research. Beachy is a long time Monsanto collaborator who heads an institute which was established by Monsanto and academic partners with a $70-million pledge from the corporation. It's effectively a Monsanto front.

Beachy left the post in April 2011.

Rajiv Shah, USAID Director

Rajiv Shah, a medical doctor in his 30s with a business degree and no previous government experience, was the agricultural programs director for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is on the board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the Danforth Plant Science Center, is one of Monsanto's key non-profit partners, forcing hazardous Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) on farmers and consumers worldwide.

The multi-billion dollar Gates Foundation is helping Monsanto infiltrate markets in poor African countries by fraudulently claiming that GMOs can feed the world and reduce rural poverty with high-priced genetically modified seed varieties that supposedly, but in fact do not, increase yields, resist drought, and improve nutrition. https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/usda_watch.php
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http://joannenova.com.au/2015/12/planetary-heroes-meet-in-paris-to-save-earth-from-bad-weather/
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Sunday, November 29, 2015

the circle of infinite grace

The solar rings are being activated to beam forth to the Earth even through the physical Sun a new outpouring of infinite grace. The effect of the step-up in the radiation patterns of our Sun into at the planets of this system will be to shorten the days of man's travail if he will but accept the offered gift. When limitation is cast aside and the limitless light of God is perceived then intelligence is no longer tethered to the old matrices of human reason but creates instead new patterns of expansion that lead to the abundant life....
When God is conceived of as light not darkness, as formless not mere form, as joy not sorrow, as sweetness not bitterness, as immortality not death, as faith/ hope/ charity not fear/ doubt/ uncertainty the world will become imbued more and more with the circle of infinite grace. -Vesta: Pearls of Wisdom 12:1
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Grace is a quality of the heart of Christ containing all mercy and forgiveness. Contrary to the accepted doctrine that grace comes only from myself, you yourself can increase the grace flowing through your heart-center from your Holy Christ Self. -Jesus Christ: Corona Class Lessons, #34
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Be clothed with the garments of true humility and hold the chaste mind of a being of love. -Morya: Pearls of Wisdom 12:23

-Archeia Mary, in Prayer and Meditation, 1978

APHIS says it has approved nearly 20,000 field-trial permits, covering an estimated 100,000 plantings of gene-altered crops.

The documents show how the obscure Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), part of the Agriculture Department, takes an industry-friendly approach in seeking to prevent contamination or economic harm from field trials (OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED PLANTS/ORGANISMS.)...APHIS says it has approved nearly 20,000 field-trial permits, covering an estimated 100,000 plantings of gene-altered crops. The agency says it has no firm count.

Once genetically engineered crops become commercialized, no government agency tracks them. That underscores the importance of monitoring field trials, particularly with crops like alfalfa and canola, and grasses with sexually compatible wild relatives....

APHIS officials said they have bolstered the agency's science capacity and increased its inspection staff to 130.

Nonetheless, APHIS is drawing heat from farmers worried about the potential effects of so many field trials. Last year more than 150 farm groups and businesses, many in the organic trade, asked the Agriculture Department to strengthen oversight of field trials. http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/GMO-experiments-receive-questionable-oversight-5740478.php

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10-23-2015 The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday signed off on a new genetically modified type of corn developed by Monsanto Co after a review concluded it posed no significant threat to agricultural crops, other plants or the environment.

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced it would deregulate Monsanto's MON 87411 maize, which was developed to protect plants against corn rootworms that can damage roots and drag down grain yields and be tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate.

The so-called trait would be inserted into a line of corn seeds' genetic code and could be "stacked" with other traits.

Glyphosate, which the World Health Organization has said is "probably" linked to cancer, is the active weed-killing ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup and other herbicides produced by farm chemical companies.

The agency's move is a step in the multiyear process of commercializing genetically engineered seed traits. Other steps include assessments by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and regulators in other countries.

The EPA's review is still ongoing. The agency's scientific advisory panel has raised red flags on the issue, however, and criticized weak guidelines in assessing the risks of such biotechnology, said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist at advocacy group the Center for Food Safety. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/us-usa-monsanto-gmo-idUSKCN0SH2HR20151023#rxUXFGUjY1E0dFR9.97